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Featured Review: Four Chapters in the Present We Were After interviewing a passel of Americans old enough to possess memories of World War II, the Kennedy assassination, the 1969 Apollo moon landing and 9/11, artist Lisa Bulawsky has crafted a trenchant series of prints rooted in those recollections. An ironing board and button-down shirt bear the faint residue of bloodshed; Wonder bread's primary-hued polka dots intermingle with pages from a handwritten journal and mirror the red bullet holes that dot an adjacent print; gas-rationing coupons float above piles of foil-wrapped Hershey's Kisses and Morse code messages rendered in red — here history is grafted upon the quotidian, reversing the conventional hierarchy wherein the personal becomes secondary to the national. This version of the past, etched in hand-drawn marks and collaged ephemera, presents itself like a new memory recalled, inviting viewers to revisit their own sense of the not-too-distant past. An empathetic listener and observer, Bulawsky summons images as diverse as fighter planes and the broken yellow line that divides some stretches of highway, in order to get a firmer grip on what it means to be "American." The long and deep stream of her interview subjects' consciousness places more-recent watershed events in a context less often considered — i.e., one of perpetual warfare and struggle accompanied by human ingenuity and making-the-best-of-it goodwill. Walking through the exhibit is like rerunning a dream: an unfolding of familiar tragic subtext shot through with buoyant and freshly discovered humanity. Through October 16 at the Millstone Gallery at COCA, 524 Trinity Avenue, University City; 314-725-6555 or www.cocastl.org. Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon.-Fri., noon-5 p.m. Sat.-Sun.